


Lost & Found

by queen_scribbles



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Gen, Meet-Cute, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 18:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17872766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_scribbles/pseuds/queen_scribbles
Summary: On the road to Gilded Vale, Adi loses her grimoire and finds a friend





	Lost & Found

**Author's Note:**

> For @pillarspromptsweekly fill 80: Gone. Adi got inspired. ;)

 

To anyone watching, Adela was sure she looked crazy. Muttering to herself as she scrambled over trunks and knapsacks, jostled through both her own belongings and others in the same wagon. Under different circumstances, maybe she would have cared, but not today.

Her grimoire was gone. The new one, from her parents, half-filled with favorite spells. She’d worked on it at least a little every night between Necazoa and Echo Bay. Almost everything from her old grimoire was copied into the new one. And now, in the clamor of picking up new travelers, it had vanished. Just... poof, gone. Adela had walked away for all of twenty minutes to see about posting a letter back home, and when she returned to the caravan, her grimoire wasn’t where she’d left it. Safely stowed next to her pack. Which was also gone. But she cared less about easily-replaced clothes than she did her _blazing grimoire_.

_I knew I should’ve taken it with me,_ she scolded herself, huffing bedraggled wisps of hair out of her eyes. _This is what you get for not feelin’ like carrying it around,_ followed swiftly by _If I can’t find it I may cry._

It was more than the monetary value or hours she’d put in to transcribing spells to its pages, her parents had given her that grimoire. It was a reminder of home every time she ran her fingers over the flowers on the cover-

“Is everything alright?”

The asker was remarkably soft-spoken, but Adela still froze briefly before popping her head up from behind the jumble of bedrolls she’d been searching.  “Well that depends.” She huffed her bangs out of her eyes(again) and looked at him. He was folk--probably Aedyran, unless she missed her guess on his accent--head tilted in curiosity, brown hair and average height, the very definition of nondescript. She wondered with some resignation if he was asking thanks to jumping to the usual conclusions kith drew regarding orlans and possessions that weren’t theirs. _Don’t be so cynical, Adi._  “You haven’t seen a red and gold book, have you? ‘Bout this big?” She gestured the rough dimensions.

He bit his lip in thought for a minute, then shook his head. “Can’t say I have, sorry.”

“Oh.” Adela’s ears dipped in disappointment. For a minute there she’d almost hoped...

“Do you want help looking?” he offered, fingers picking at a small hole in his sleeve.

_Wael’s eyes, yes!_ She smiled, tugged on her braid. “That would be wonderful. If you don’t mind.”

He shook his head again--”Not at all”--and climbed up in the wagon with her.  “This must be an awful special book.”

“Uh-huh,” Adela grunted as she shifted a crate full of vegetables. Odema would have to add another wagon if they picked up any more people before Gilded Vale; everything was packed to the gills. “Going away present from my parents. Wasn’t where I left it when I got back from sending a letter. My stuff’s been in this Wael-damned wagon since leaving Necazoa, but either someone took it or they moved me elsewhere to accommodate new people, and I’m starting to get worried. Which isn’t like me,” she added, not sure why she babbling. Nerves, maybe. “I just... I promised them I’d be safe, and how’m I s’pposed to do that when I can’t even keep track of my stuff?”

“Well, you’ve made it all the way from...”

“...Ixamitl,” she filled in when he paused.

“Ixamitl alright, so I think you’re doing fine.”

“Thanks,” she laughed. They searched the rest of the wagon in silence before admitting defeat. “Alright, it’s not here,” Adela huffed.

“Well, there are plenty of other wagons to check,” he said encouragingly, running one hand through his hair.

“I couldn’t ask-” she started to protest, picking up on the clear hint he meant to help.

“I don’t mind,” he assured her as he stepped out of the wagon. “And I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Well, in that case,” she smiled. “It would go faster with help.” She also accepted the hand down he offered. High running boards and short legs usually made this part tricky. He had blue eyes, she noted in the brief moment their faces were level. _The color of cornflowers._

“Which one next?” he asked, once she was steady on the ground.,

“Um, that one, I guess.” Adela gestured to the closest of the other wagons. This one was open rather than covered and would be easier to search. She still climbed in it, even as her new nothing-else-to-do friend simply leaned over the side.

She’d barely begun nudging her way through the piled-up knapsacks when he let out an _ah!_ of triumph and held up something red. “Is this it?”

Adela whirled around as best she could near waist-deep in traveling detritus and lit up with the surge of relief. “Yes! Hylea’s wings, thank you-” she stopped abruptly, realizing she hadn’t even asked his name.

“Heodan,” he supplied with a smile as he handed over the grimoire.

“Thank you, Heodan,” she repeated, hugging the red and gold tome into her chest with one arm and holding out the other hand to shake. “I’m Adela.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Heodan said, still smiling as he shook her hand. “Are you heading for Gilded Vale as well?”

Adela nodded and scrambled down from the wagon--much as she liked being eye level. It wasn’t often she met someone with eyes the color of her favorite flower. “Just temporarily, I’m pretty sure. But for now, that’s where I’m headed, yes.”

“Well, then-” He was distracted by the approach of a caravan guard, who muttered something about Odema wanting to speak to the new people before they got moving. “I look forward to traveling with you.”

Adela nodded, smoothing her hair back behind her ear. “Me, too. I mean... you know.”

Heodan laughed, warm not mean. “I do.” He followed the guard off toward wherever Odema was, leaving Adela hugging her grimoire to her chest with the oddest flutter in her stomach.

_I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything,_ she told herself, and went to find somewhere she could sit to transcribe another spell before they got underway. _Nothing at all._


End file.
